Save
Our Stripers!
www.saveourstripers.org
We need our chamber members help to defeat proposed legislation to deregulate the striped bass. A Kern County assembly woman has introduced legislation to open them to unlimited take, no size limit, commercial fishing, etc. as retaliation to our efforts to protect our delta water. If you feel this will affect your members businesses please visit the site and sign on in opposition: www.saveourstripers.org.
If you have more questions, write or visit the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance at www.calsport.org. Note that all fishing organizations in our region and our state oppose this legislation. Our Department of Fish and Game disagrees with the premise of this legislation and is currently fighting a similar attack on our striped bass fishery in court. Your support in opposition is CRITICAL in helping to crush this legislation before it has a chance to ruin our fishery and harm your business!
FishDelta.Com - Fish Reports
FishDelta.com is a new Delta Chambers member. We will now be adding the link to their fishing reports each week on this page. Some of the reports are duplicates. CLICK HERE to read the FishDelta Reports.
Also, for those missing the old Delta Chambers Fish Forum, you can now go to FishDeltaBuzz and participate in their fishing forums. Click Here
Delta
Bank Fishing
by Roland “Innovate”
Aspiras
Recent storms have given the valley much needed water to fill nearby lakes and reservoirs. Rainfall totals were well over the averages for this month, and that’s a good thing. The bad thing is the Old Sacramento river is almost unfishable due to the high water, fast current and large amounts of debris.
Rich Woodard and his son convinced me to come out fishing on the Old Sacramento River this past Monday to chuck heavy lead and play tug-of-war with snags. Although the reports coming out of the area were promising, we fared what I expected – lots of grass, and a couple of snags. We fished pile worms and eel. Before heading out, I saw several reports from the Sacramento area of large sturgeon being landed by anglers. The rain definitely has sparked up the bite, but you definitely need some patience with the current water conditions - and that’s something I lack these days. Give it another week for the water to flush out and I’ll be out there trying my luck again.
Further south, fishing has sparked up for anglers fishing around the Rio Vista, Pittsburg and Suisun Bay areas. Captain Steve Talmadge of Flash Sportfishing reported a great outing on the 26th with 10 fish landed near the Mothball Fleet. The mixture included some oversize, legals, and shakers. Captain Kevin Yost of Lucky Strike Charters was also out on the 26th doing a night charter. They experienced a slow bite during the incoming, however the outgoing had some good action with one very nice fish to the boat. For those wanting to try their luck, I would suggest fishing shallow water during the outgoing tide.
Striper reports have almost dematerialized for anglers fishing Rio Vista. Storm runoff makes for cold and murky water conditions making trolling almost impossible and bait fishing a tough feat. For those wanting to try, I would suggest fishing slower moving sloughs with swimbaits, fishtraps, and livebait.
For those looking for snag-free fishing like, the Port of Sacramento is a good bet for catfish. Toss cut fish (sardines/anchovies), clams and chicken livers for the whiskerfish.
To all, have a fun time on the banks but be careful where you step. Rain-soaked levees are usually soft this time of year and can give way if you’re not attentive. The next few days are supposed to be fair, with some low lying fog. Temps will be chilly. The hot bite right now is Sturgeon, but if you’re not wanting to wrestle snags on the Old Sac, wait it out a few days for the water conditions to improve.
Roland
“Innovate”
Aspiras
Roland's Fishing Blog
Email
Isleton Area
by Can Nguyen -- Bob's Bait Shops
It rained very good last week and continued this week. However, it was not as windy as in previous weeks. The water turned chocolate color. There are too much debris and logs floating on the rivers during the outgoing tide. It will be clear today and tomorrow but there is a chance of rain either this Friday or Saturday.
As mentioned in previous fishing reports, sturgeon fishing was very good from last weekend till now from Rio Vista Bridge to Isleton Bridge. Any sand bars along this river could be found on Delta maps and are very good to fish for sturgeon this time.
So far, one angler and his son from San Jose got total 5 sturgeons during last four fishing trips in the in Isleton area. Some sturgeons were too big to land and the fishing line was broken while fighting for the fish. This anglers ended up landing one over size sturgeon and 2 keepers. Most were released. His son only kept one for his friend.
I went out fishing yesterday at the Isleton fishing pier. After one hour of fishing during the incoming tide just before the highest tide, my second rod moved up and down slowly. I held the rod and felt the other side pulling. I set the hook twice and fought for 10 minutes to land a 55” sturgeon. This sturgeon weighed about 40 lbs. The bait used was grass shrimp for this sturgeon. I also used ghost shrimp on another rod.
There were not many bank anglers and boat anglers out last week. For that reason, there were not many reports about fishing activities. Now should be the best time to fish for sturgeon in the Delta area. The good areas where sturgeon could be found most are light 36A, the mouth of old Sacramento River and the Sacramento River, the Dump Gate, Tennessee spot, Isleton fishing pier, Isleton Bridge, and Liberty Island. Be sure to carry grass shrimp, ghost shrimp, lamprey eel, and even salmon roe.
Best luck to you and have a nice coming weekend.
Antioch-Oakley
Area
by Chris Lauritzen -- Lauritzen Yacht
Harbor
If you were hoping for fast moving muddy water to fish the Original Sturgeon Derby XVI in two weeks you have it.
Last week was a really long week at the harbor for us. Lots of rain in a short period of time. Lots of rain, lots of wind when the tide was up and a really low barometric pressure that kept the storm door open.
The good news is it rained most of last week but stopped long enough for folks to come out and fish last Saturday. There seems to be a few sturgeon being caught on the San Joaquin River from the power plant in Antioch (used to the P.G. & E. plant now operated by Mirant) to the Riverview Lodge in water from 35 – 50 feet of water.
One report had one customer last week who was fishing by himself in the area I just described. He came up to the harbor office last Thursday a little winded because he had just hooked up and released a 6 foot sturgeon he was grinning from ear to ear.
There were a few black bass fisherman working the marinas but I did not get any kind of report that there was any kind of bite.
This weekend will be an interesting weekend in that we will have the highest tides of the year at the Golden Gate with 7 foot tides or better Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The 7 foot tides are followed by minus 1.2 foot drop for the low tides.
In a perfect world, the barometer will stay high this coming weekend allowing the rain run off to flow out of the through the Delta Bay system so that we don’t flood out. There were a lot of folks running around filling sand bags in places that have the potential for flooding due to being in a low lying area or just in an area where you can only handle so much water. Downtown Martinez is one of those areas where every doorway has sand bags stacked up because of rain run off and or high tides that back up water in downtown Martinez.
Last week Monday through Friday, we had a lot of rain everywhere in the Bay area. The Delta was no different, but for whatever reason our rain gauge stopped working so I can’t give you an accurate rainfall number for the Antioch Bridge area. Before the rain gauge stuck we had measured 3.30 inches for the month of January. Average rainfall for us is 2.03 inches based on a ten year average.
The exciting news is that during that same period of time, Shasta Dam was filling at the rate of 4 feet every 24 hours and Oroville Dam was filling at the rate of 2 feet of 24 hours. Currently Shasta is at an elevation of 982.78 feet the top is 1067 feet. I do expect Shasta to be able to fill lets hope that they don’t start dumping water in anticipation of snow pack run off.
Oroville is another story. Currently, the elevation is 685.95 and the top is 900 feet. So you can see Oroville needs to move up some 215 feet to reach the top before it is full. That may be a stretch.
I’m happy to note that the water level and tide at the I Street Bridge in Sacramento on the Sacramento River has come down 1.5 feet in the past 24 hours to a current elevation of 16 feet. The water flow has slowed as well to a current level of 52,000 CFS down from 57,000 CFS 24 hrs ago.
We continue to see high water at the high tide at the Rio Vista Bridge on the Sacramento. Today at high tide it was a 7.58 foot tide. The highest water was February 20th 1986, when the high water topped 11.5 feet. None of us in the Delta want to repeat that.
If you are going to boat this weekend watch out for all of the debris in the water. Make sure to have plenty of scope out on your anchor line so that you don’t drift with the current. See you on the water.
Chris Lauritzen
Lauritzen's
Yacht Harbor
Website
Guest
Report by
Dale
"Fishwisher" Gillespie
Look for Dale's guest reports on future postings.
Dale "Fishwisher"
Dale's
Fishing Blog
Email